Memory

Memory is an inheritance of a loved but illusory past. It is never pure; only that which is recorded is maintained all else vanishes. Even we who remember ourselves do so by seeing ourselves third person, an out-of-body experience to be sure. Yet when we lived that moment it was as ourselves and not as avatar. So our memories make us removed from ourselves just as we are distanced from the reality of what really happened. If we have no infallible records, if we have no purity of past, then we can have pride only in false stories of ourselves. This is not worth dying or killing for, yet this fallacy remains the heart of patriotism and nationalism. Je suis moi!